Un Tipo Strano
by Samuel Gratacap
Samuel Gratacap and Wissam Hojeij will be attending
In competition 2021
Official synopsis
Amadou, a young Gambian, arrives in Italy following a long journey. After working in the fields, he decides to reach Rome where he meets three Italians of his age. They sympathize and go to a party. The evening ends on a beach at dawn. Their encounter will take them even further, to the border crossing of the Alps.
The programmer’s eye
In recent years, Samuel Gratacap has carried out a long photographic and videographic work in the places of passage and confinement of people exiled in Libya and seeking to reach Italy. Using this accumulated material, he offers us a delicate fiction, served by powerful and rare documentary images. In the background, one witnesses the excesses of European migration policies. “Un Tipo Strano” is the incarnate story of a journey, the transmission of the mere emotion from an encounter whose fumblings lead to other possibilities. — Mathilde Guitton-Marcon
Biography and Filmography
A photographer and a videographer whose work falls within the field of both visual arts and photojournalism, Samuel Gratacap is interested in the phenomena of migration and places of transit generated by contemporary conflicts. His projects are the result of long periods of immersion, a necessary period to understand the complexity of the situations and to reconstruct what, beyond numbers, flows, maps, geopolitical data and media news, constitutes their cores: trajectories and personal experiences. Samuel Gratacap’s work, carried out over two years in Tunisia in the Choucha refugee camp (2012-2014), was the subject of an exhibition at the Bal (Paris) in 2015 and a publication by Editions Filigranes. That same year, his project Les Naufragé(e)s (Libya) was exhibited at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris) as part of the Biennial of Photographers of the Contemporary Arab World. In 2017, he exhibited “Fifty Fifty” as part of the Rencontres d'Arles, an exhibition on Libya being torn between war and the plight of migrants. In 2019 and 2020, he was a resident at the Villa Medici, in Rome. “Un Tipo Strano” is his first short film.
2021 - UN TIPO STRANO (Short) - Samuel Gratacap - Director, Screenwriter
Samuel Gratacap
Amadou Juldeh Bah, Elena Ordonez Valverde, Alessio Petrungaro...
Les Films du Détroit
by Samuel Gratacap
A photographer and a videographer whose work falls within the field of both visual arts and photojournalism, Samuel Gratacap is interested in the phenomena of migration and places of transit generated by contemporary conflicts. His projects are the result of long periods of immersion, a necessary period to understand the complexity of the situations and to reconstruct what, beyond numbers, flows, maps, geopolitical data and media news, constitutes their cores: trajectories and personal experiences. Samuel Gratacap’s work, carried out over two years in Tunisia in the Choucha refugee camp (2012-2014), was the subject of an exhibition at the Bal (Paris) in 2015 and a publication by Editions Filigranes. That same year, his project Les Naufragé(e)s (Libya) was exhibited at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris) as part of the Biennial of Photographers of the Contemporary Arab World. In 2017, he exhibited “Fifty Fifty” as part of the Rencontres d'Arles, an exhibition on Libya being torn between war and the plight of migrants. In 2019 and 2020, he was a resident at the Villa Medici, in Rome. “Un Tipo Strano” is his first short film.
2021 - UN TIPO STRANO (Short) - Samuel Gratacap - Director, Screenwriter